A Streetcar Named Desire.

WILLIAMS, Tennessee.

Item Number: 4528

New York: New Directions, 1947.

First edition. Octavo, original illustrated boards. Signed by Tennesse Williams and six of the principal members of the original broadway cast. In addition to Williams, it is signed by Marlon Brando, Jessica Tandy, Gee Gee James, Peg Hillias, Kim Hunter and Karl Malden. From the collection of Herbert Adrian Rehner, with his signature, dated 1948, on the front free endpaper. Rehner was a college classmate of one of Karl Malden’s younger brothers, and the two made numerous trips to New York in the 1940s. It was during this time they were introduced to the actors that director Elia Kazan had assembled for the Broadway debut of Williams’ play. Rehner was a frequent dinner guest of Williams’ during this period. Some rubbing to the bottom cloth and extremities in a near fine dust jacket with some of the usual sunning to the spine. Housed in a custom half morocco clamshell box. A unique item with excellent provenance.

A Streetcar Named Desire received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1948. The play opened on Broadway on December 3, 1947, and closed on December 17, 1949, in the Ethel Barrymore Theatre. The Broadway production was directed by Elia Kazan and starred Marlon Brando, Jessica Tandy, Kim Hunter, and Karl Malden. “No one dared approach this new thing without caution. They had just witnessed something unprecedented on the stage, a high-pitched, jagged, alarming—and comical!—drama structure” (Sam Staggs). It is often regarded among the finest of American plays of the 20th century.